Herbarius

As you can see the one I have isn't pressure-sensitive, you play on a regular board and enter the coordinates via the keypad. Of course you also have to move the pieces for the computer. If you had the LCD chessboard peripheral you wouldn't need that anymore, or at least you could check the LCD board to verify the positions and make sure you didn't make any errors moving the pieces... Yes, I totally understand what you mean, that's why I usually setup a board even when I played on the PC with a program that shows a graphical image of the board... Well, not always, for a quick game I'd just play away, but for the real feeling I'd use the real board. The same would propably apply even if I had the LCD board - altohugh if offered the choice between both peripherals, I'd definitely choose the printer.

Er... serious question? Maybe someone did it in the past, but I surely did not. I don't have any equipment or knowledge to do that. Also it would mean disassembling the unit and taking the ROM out, and I won't bet it's socketed... It seems to have been dumped by someone at some point, as I found that MESS has "preliminary" emulation of the system (you can't actually play it yet, even if you have the ROMs), and they also have CRC and SHA hashes of both banks. I actually found both files online, but I checked against the checksums from the MESS site and they don't match. What equipment do I need for this? I know someone who MIGHT have the necessary equipment, but I'd have to ask. Also he doesn't currently live at my town anymore, so meeting will be problematic... maybe over the holidays... but I can't promise anything, I don't even now if he has the necessary equipment and even if he has, we still would need some instructions.

Well I pretty much got this idea when I saw the Wii "Nunchuk" the first time and from then on it kept lingering in my mind... So now I decided to hone my MS Paint skills again and make a picture of my idea: What do you think? Please keep in mind, I don't plan to make a mod like that, and neither do I claim I would be able to. In fact I'm almost completely untalented regarding stuff like that. However, from what I understand my idea isn't all that far fetched. Also I think actually playing the 5200 with this could very well be awesome

I think whats different about the newer systems is the optical drive (CD/DVD/Blu-Ray), so you were right about the "moving parts" bit. However I think those are really a problem. From my own experiences with audio CD players and PC CD-ROM drives I'd say those won't last much more than 5 years. The other parts of the console propably will (assuming it doesn't RRoD ), but you'll have to repair and/or replace the drive mechanics and laser in comparatively short intervals. Maybe someone can confirm this? Some systems, like the original Playstation or the Saturn, are already well past my estimate. What's the likelihood of finding one of those which still works, without needing to repair?

Are you sure? From what I've read it only "cheats" on the higher levels - and even that isn't cheating per se but rather messing up the board: Instead of having the AI cheat intentionally to make the game harder - which would be stupid for a game like chess - it's some bug in the code which affects the current positions of the pieces on the board. My guess is it is the result of an effort to minimize the amount of used RAM that went horribly wrong. Someone mentioned C&C, yes that AI cheats pretty badly, but that never bothered me, at least in the campaign mode (the only mode available to play the computer in the first game). I never saw it so much as cheating but more as "the AI works differently". Also it needs to cheat that much to actually be challenging, and even that way you could beat it quite easily up until the last few missions of each campaign - only talking about those missions where you could build your own base. The ones where you couldn't build usually were quite difficult, at least until you worked out a proper tactic. In the skirmish mode of Red Alert, however, I thought it was unfair, usually the AI tank-rushed you very early, so you had to start out very defense-heavy and even then you might not survive the first attack. Also, if you played multiple opponents, they would automatically ally against you. In skirmish mode the excuse "it just works different for them" didn't apply anymore, because it's supposed to simulate a multiplayer game, a symmetric situation.

No it was NOT a Win3.1 application, although it kinda imitated the looks of Windows 3.1. In fact that was kind of the whole beauty of it, Windows would take forever to load, and if you tried to run your DOS games from Windows you'd run into memory and compatibility problems, so that was out of the question. In contrast, PrimeMenu would load and operate very fast while not being very demanding (system requirements were something like "386, VGA card, mouse") and also it wouldn't use any memory while running the games because it actually exits PM and technically runs a BAT which first runs the game, and after you've quit that, start PM again (using some command line argument to take you back to the same page you were on). Of course those aren't the exact same icons, I just chose some that go in the same general style as those available back then. As I said, there were a bunch of icons already included. One of them was actually really a Commander-Keen head. Most were some general purpose icons, like floppy disks, common items, cars, ... Also there was a Icon editor included in the GUI to make your own. But most importantly there was an Icon Converter included (unlike the Icon editor this was not inside the GUI but as a seperate EXE), which could convert any number of Windows 3.1 ICO files into the native format of Prime Menu (but not the other way), so I would take one of those "1000+ icons for Windows" collections from back then and convert them all, so I'd have a massive selection of icons to choose from. Thanks for the links you provided to alternatives. I actually already found some of those, but in my opinion they either don't quite match up with Prime Menu or they take a different approach and try to give you more of a full-boasted pseudo-Win95 environment. And, to be honest, I think most of them are kinda ugly. They just don't match the overall very clean, functional and yet asthetic interface of PrimeMenu. Also I've yet to find another one that has that "reboot with different config files" feature. I'll try them anyway, but I'll keep looking for the best of the best If I'd realized back then how awesome it actually is (instead of taking it for granted) I sure would have taken efforts to conserve it, at least I think I would have... I never abandonen something easily, thinking "I would never need it again"... I know I had it on a floppy for a long time, somehow thinking one floppy is enough I've some faint memory of finding the disk and trying to install or copy it (quite some time after I stopped using it regularly, which was when I got my 200 MHz Pentium and switched over to Windows 95 "for real") but discovering the disk had gone bad, but I'm not quite sure if it's a proper memory or just some imagination... What supports that theory is that a lot of disks from that same time, having the same type of self-made labels, some still working, some faulty, but not that one disk. And I've tried all the unlabeled disks in case the label has fallen off, but all of those were either empty or had something else on it (mostly much more recent stuff, from when I already had a dial-up internet connection, but USB sticks weren't around yet)

I am 100% sure it was called pm / pmenu for short, and like 99% sure it was called "PrimeMenu"...

Well, my mother did throw out a lot of old stuff and one of the items she considered dumping in the thrash was this 1979 chess system: CHESS CHAMPION SUPER SYSTEM III Of course I couldn't let her do that, so I took it. It works well, however it's just the main unit, without any of the peripherals like the printer or LCD chessboard you can see on that page. I also think it has a nice design and even if it is old, at least for a non-professional like me it's still a very challenging opponent (even on the default setting of 10 seconds (max. CPU "thinking" time), you can set it to anything from 0 seconds (i.e. immediate response) to 100 hours!). So I wondered, what about you guys who collect a lot of game systems, are vintage Chess systems part of your collection or would you add them, if you come across them? Or is it completely out of your scope? Maybe because it's a board game, and not a video game? Well, I'm looking forward to your responses. Oh, I didn't really know where to put this, and I hesitated to put it here, because it's in the "Atari systems" category - however I think I've seen non-atari systems here before, and afterall this seemed to be the most appropiate place to me, but if it's wrong, please feel free to move the thread to a more fitting board.

I did a screen mockup, I think it looks very much like the actual program. Of course I've taken some leeways, you don't really expect me to remember everything I don't know if it helps to spark anyone's memorys. Feel free to post this image at the Vintage Computing Forum, Jibbajaba.

Wow, sweet indeed, there I found many manuals I was still missing...

Thanks!

Who else thinks the voice "actor" of Dr. Light in the Megaman 8 sample sounds very drunk? Overall, I got some good laughs from that, indeed.

I find your lack of faith disturbing...! scnr The "Vader" 2600 is the only one I got, and I like the all-black look. While I don't think the woodgrain is ugly, I just don't care much for it. About the Jr., I have never seen one in real life, so I can't say whether I'd like it or not. By the pictures I get the expression I could actually like the look of a 2600jr, but it really depends on "how cheap" it looks, something which can't really be seen in a photograph. (In case you don't understand what I mean with "cheap look", compare the look of a very cheap PC keyboard to a similar one from a higher price range. It's really hard to describe what the difference is, but it's obvious to plain sight.)

I'd vote for "Xo-nox" ("kzo-nox") and "eh-pix"... (just like the word "epic")

Yes, I thought about that. What if he did never plan to really melt the carts down, he just acted like he would, in an effort to artificially generate more demand. Or perhaps he really IS going to melt them down... Most, but not all of them. As a result, the value of the remaining games would increase significantly, maybe instead of lowering his prices to the actual value, he is trying to raise the value of the games to the level of his prices. Which, in my opinion, would be a scheme as corrupt as it is effective.

Well, it's made to take up to 15V...

Does anyone know what their actual problem was with having the BASIC interpreter in it?

Well, you must have a very broad definition of "not breaking sth.", if dropping something from a balcony is included in it.

This page has all the information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_gun And I still don't understand most of it. :-) I get the old school method, screen goes black except for a white spot the sensor should pick up. I know this because we had such an OLD system and my brother would get high scores by aiming the gun at a lightbulb. :-( But the CRT methods I'm still a bit foggy on as far as when it blanks (if it still does) and what is lit and being sensed? desiv Aaah, yes, the infamous lightbulb trick. I read the article, and it explains it for the NES Zapper: when it blanks the TV and lights up the positions of the targets, it doesn't light them all up at once, but one after the other... It's so fast, you don't notice it, in fact you barely even notice that the screen flashes blank at all. But not too fast for the CPU it will detect which target you shot depending on at what time it recieved light. So, now as far as I can judge it, this would mean, at least the NES Zapper should even work with LCD screens? It is made clear why some other guns work with LCD screens, those that use Cathode ray timing. However, it seems the NES uses full frames, so the only reason I could think of why it won't work with LCDs is because the light isn't "strong" enough... Maybe someone who has a NES Zapper and an LCD TV could try this: Make your room as dark as possible, and also turn the brightness of the TV screen up to maximum. Yes, it propably looks horrible, but it's just to try it out ^^ (note your previous setting, so you can return to it later without getting confused) Then try a light gun game, but stay close to the screen, maybe 1 meter between the tip of the Zapper and the screen... if this doesn't work, move a little bit closer and repeat... It really should work, even if it works badly, shouldn't it?

As this thread seams to be resolved, I would like to post a more general question about light guns. Can you have a game with multiple targets on screen at once? If so, how can the system know, which of those you shot? As far as I understand the lightgun only registers light=hit, dark=miss?

Well, it was in the mid-90s when I had a very neat "menu" program on my PC called PrimeMenu. It gave you a graphical menu of your programs to start with the click of the mouse, of couse you first had to configure it. You could set up something like up to 8 pages with a total of up to 16 programs per page. May have been 10 pages an/or 24 programs per page. It had a lot of icons included, and also a converter that could convert Windows ICO files into the PrimeMenu format, and an editor to make your own. You could setup all the programs inside the GUI, there was no need to edit any INI files or something like that. To run it, you would usually type "pm" - while usually I had it in the autoexec.bat. Even when I later got Windows 95, I set it up in a way it would not automatically start Windows itself, but only the DOS 7.0, and then I would start Windows 95 from PrimeMenu only if I needed it... A simple calculator and I think calendar were included as well. It could also do some "fancy" stuff, like assigning individual config files (autoexec.bat, config.sys) to a program and if you would start that, it would reboot the machine with those, run the game, then restore your original autoexec/config and reboot again. (Much like what Windows 9x did with it's so called "MS-DOS mode".) As far as I reacall the program was freeware, while the PrimeCopy floppy copier program which came on the same disk was shareware. I searched the Web, but came up with nothing. So I ask you, does anyone still know that program or maybe even has it and could upload it?

Well I'm always space-challenged, not because of gaming stuff, but because of how little room I have... But it's not really something I'm trying to do because of space but rather for convenience. Yes, you are right. I found out the letter tray is Polystyrene, which, if Wikipedia can be trusted, becomes malleable at a temperature of 100°C (=212°F), while it will melt at temperatures of 240-270°C (464-518°C), depending on what type of Polystyrene it is. I don't think I can get it to 100°C with a hairdryer. I'll have to think it over, but I've not given up yet. I'll keep you posted.

This is almost correct. However, I'm not using glue, because it could be hard to remove later, should I want to. What it is? It's a plastic letter tray. Much like those: I wanted to put the Atari on top of it, so I could have the room below for manuals and the like, and also to manage controller cords easier, by also putting those through the tray, and somehow fix the plugs at the other side so they won't slide back out again, and of course, put little stickers on them which show, to which controller each plug belongs. So I have an easy time switching to the controller I want without the cables getting tangled up anymore. Well it didn't really fit. It did almost fit. The letter tray is made out of a very soft plastic, so it could be bended so the Atari does indeed fit into it... However, it won't stay that way for long, because it will spring back out after a while. Also the bottom of the tray is bended upwards, so it's use would be diminished. So, I've put all that weight on top to help bend the plastic of the letter tray permanently so it will not spring out again... Also the floppy drive you see is pressing onto the tilted front of the bottom of the letter tray, which actually - through lever action - seems to bend the bottom back into a flatter state. (There was already a small crack in it, which isn't too bad and might even help for this) There's also a 3.5" floppy drive inside the tray, that you can't see on the picture. Do I not fear I could harm the Atari? Well, not really, after all it's built like a tank, and it's plastic is MUCH harder than that of the letter tray. It's been more that 18 hours that way you saw on the picture... Unfortunately after I released the weight it didn't seem to have affected the letter tray very much... I put it back, this time without the CDs, and instead more books, also this time the 5.25" drive gets additional weight on top of it by the second book. Well, maybe it just won't work... Glueing it would be always an option, but then again it would mean putting glue on the Atari 2600 case which, like I said above, could be hard to remove later, should I not want to use this setup with the tray underneath anymore. If this does remind anyone of something he/she did in the past or planned to do, please feel free to post your own stories. Also if anyone has advice, I'd like to hear it.

lol I'll try to remember that, hopefully someday I will actually play a game of Classic Computer Jenga I suspect the C64 in the bottom part of the picture could confuse people, so please note: It has nothing to do with the picture, it's all about the 2600.

Well, here's the picture, because when I looked at that sight, I thought it might look silly enough to be funny to people here, or maybe even mystify people as to what I'm trying to do. So, who can figure out why I did that "weird stack", and what I want to accomplish? Well, the answer isn't very complicated, and I don't even know if it will work out, I'll just have to see how it works out. Of course I'll post after a while what I am doing so you don't have to keep wondering forever, and if you don't want to participate in this "silly game", just wait until then